


sail away, sail away, sail away

by Snickfic



Category: Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Genre: Characters take luxurious self-indulgent vacation, F/F, Getting Together, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 10:20:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20274328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic
Summary: Things Rachel Chu had: an enormous mixed drink she’d forgotten the name of, possibly due to having drunk two of them already. Two weeks’ stay on this tropical island so exclusive Rachel had never heard the name of it before Nick. A really fucking cute swimsuit. An infinity pool, in which she was currently sitting, over whose precipitous edge she could see the blue, blue Caribbean.Things Rachel Chu did not have: a fiance.





	sail away, sail away, sail away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ElasticElla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElasticElla/gifts).

> I've shipped them hardcore since the movie, and I was so tickled to have a chance to write them for you! I hope you enjoy. <3

Things Rachel Chu had: an enormous mixed drink she’d forgotten the name of, possibly due to having drunk two of them already. Two weeks’ stay on this tropical island so exclusive Rachel had never heard the name of it before Nick. A really fucking cute swimsuit. An infinity pool, in which she was currently sitting, over whose precipitous edge she could see the blue, blue Caribbean.

Unexpectedly, a voice said, “May I join you?” Rachel turned from her extremely expensive view to find Astrid Leong standing in her open sliding-glass door. 

Things Rachel Chu did not have: a fiance. Any connection to the Youngs past the end of this would-be honeymoon. _You should go anyway, if you want_, Nick had said. No, don’t worry about the money. There’s no refunds at places like that. Enjoy yourself. Please.

Rachel suspected he’d been lying about the refunds, but she’d taken him at his word all this time, and see where it had gotten her. Might as well believe him this one last time.

She looked at Astrid, in her pantsuit with lines that Rachel had learned to recognize as couture, her sunglasses pushed back onto her forehead, her diamond-drop earrings that sparkled in her ears. She wore an uncertain smile. “How are you here?” Rachel asked.

Astrid shrugged, which she did as elegantly as she did everything else. “Nick thought you might want company.”

Another thing Rachel had: a heart, unbroken but definitely bruised. “_Nick_,” she said.

Astrid grimaced. “I’ll go, if you’d rather.” She looked uncomfortable, which felt wrong. Astrid looking comfortable wearing a few millions dollars; she looked comfortable burying dead fish. She was always, always at ease.

Another thing Rachel didn’t have: company. “Stay,” she said, and was rewarded with a smile so bright it startled her a little. It took her breath away.

\--

Astrid had never been to the resort before. For once, it was Rachel who was the expert, if three days’ experience made her one. “The mahi-mahi is good,” she said, with the authority of someone who had very nearly made sex noises over it the night before. So Astrid ordered the mahi-mahi at Rachel’s recommendation, and Rachel ordered the wine Astrid suggested. They ate on a private veranda with a view of the sunset.

“I was a little surprised you took this trip,” Astrid said. “I didn’t think it was your style.”

Rachel hadn’t figured Astrid had given any thought to what Rachel’s style was. Somehow she didn’t think Astrid just meant _cheap_. “It’s not,” Rachel said. “This kind of life—it was never for me. This was kind of a last hurrah, I guess. A goodbye to the life I though I was going to have. And,” she added, in the spirit of honesty, “my last chance to eat absurd amounts of incredible seafood on Nick’s dime.”

Astrid grinned. “To seafood,” she said, lifting her glass. 

That was a toast Rachel could agree with. “To seafood,” she said.

\--

It was after dinner that Rachel realized Astrid didn’t have accommodations yet. “Stay with me,” Rachel said. “If you don’t mind sharing a bed. It’s huge.”

Astrid’s mouth looked very soft. “I don’t mind,” she said.

Rachel fell asleep to gentle, steady sound of Astrid’s breath.

\--

They explored the island. Trails wound around the greater and lesser mountains, and there was an in-house app for identifying wildlife. At an overlook, the sea rippling and just out of earshot, Rachel spotted something orange in the trees, and Astrid got out her borrowed resort binoculars.

“I think it’s this parrot,” Astrid said at last, while Rachel was taking her turn with the binoculars. There was a note in the app: _very rare._

A hundred feet farther up, a huge flowering bush hung over the trail. The flowers were a brilliant pink and half as wide as Rachel’s hand. “Here,” Astrid said, beckoning her over until she was half-buried in the bush. There was a branch digging into her shoulder, and Rachel was about to protest when Astrid stepped in close, near enough—near enough to touch. Astrid reached past Rachel; the bush rustled until suddenly there was a flower tucked behind Rachel’s ear.

“Since we can’t pick them,” Astrid said, smiling. She took a step back and snapped a couple of photos, and then she leaned in again to tug the flower gently free again. Rachel caught Astrid’s gaze—distracted at first, but as Rachel watched, the distraction gave way to something else, something cautious. It made Rachel’s heart beat faster.

A bird squawked behind Rachel, so loud that she flinched. She scrambled away from the bush, and when she turned again Astrid was laughing, but not _at_ Rachel, she didn’t think. Rachel doubted Astrid ever laughed _at_ people.

How did a woman like Su Yi end up with grandchildren like these, Rachel wondered. “Onward,” she said. Feeling very bold, she hooked her arm around Astrid’s elbow. Astrid laughed again, full of delight. They walked that way for a couple hundred feet, until the trail took a steep turn. After, Rachel missed the warmth of Astrid’s skin.

\--

They picked up a lunch basket from the concierge and took it to their room. There were sandwiches, mangoes with rice for dessert, and rosé. They ate by the infinity pool in the shade of an umbrella. “Nick dumped me this time,” Rachel said, when her sandwich was mostly gone.

“He said.” Astrid took a sip of her wine. 

“He finally realized that he couldn’t stay in New York forever, and that I wasn’t going to leave.” Geography: a more intractable problem even than Eleanor Young. “I don’t know how he ever thought that was going to work out. Or how I did.”

“Nick can be very convincing.”

“It’s all the sincerity,” Rachel said ruefully. Abruptly finished with the topic, she said, “What about you? Have you been to New York?”

“Not recently,” Astrid said, with a peculiar significance that made Rachel look up. Astrid closed her lips around her dessert spoon. She chewed her mango and rice and watched Rachel with an intent, unreadable expression.

\--

After they had cleared away the remains of lunch, Rachel brought her tablet out. “Journal reading,” she told Astrid. “Academia waits for no woman.”

Astrid disappeared briefly inside and returned in a bikini. She slathered herself with sunscreen and lay on a towel for a while. Rachel kept being distracted by the curve of Astrid’s hips, the lines of her shoulder blades. After a while, Astrid said, “If I lie here any longer I’ll fall asleep.” Her smile was warm, sun-dazed, half-awake. She pushed to her feet and disappeared inside again, and she didn’t come out.

Rachel let herself admit, at last, what she wanted to happen.

_Nick_, she thought, but Nick had sent Rachel here, Nick had sent _Astrid_ here. He’d broken up with Rachel six weeks ago.

After another half-hour, she gave up on her reading. She couldn’t concentrate on it anyway. She found Astrid stretched out on their bed, fast asleep. Strands of hair had fallen in Astrid’s face and shifted slightly with each breath. Carefully, so as not to wake Astrid, Rachel lay down on the other side of the bed. A breeze came gently through the open window, blowing in off the sea.

\--

Rachel woke to someone’s gaze on her. She opened her eyes, and there was Astrid, propped up on one elbow. In the afternoon’s long shadows, her eyes were dark. She held Rachel’s gaze, and she didn’t speak. She didn’t move, even when Rachel pushed up and leaned in and cupped Astrid’s jaw.

Her mouth was as soft as Rachel had thought it would be. Astrid’s kisses were tentative at first, unsure. After a few moments, she pulled back and said, “Nick didn’t send me.”

Distracted by the lack of kissing, Rachel blinked at this non-sequitur. “He didn’t?”

“He doesn’t even know I’m here. He was worried about you, and I thought—” Astrid bit her lip. Her gaze was troubled now, and Rachel didn’t want that. She brushed her thumb over Astrid’s ear and waited. At last, Astrid said, “Sometimes I have trouble being honest. With people. When—just, with people, sometimes. I’m trying to do better.”

Rachel sorted through that. Finally, she said, “You came all this way to see me, all by yourself?”

“Yes,” Astrid said, looking no less troubled.

“Okay,” Rachel said. She was smiling, probably. She felt buoyant, lighter than air. “Cool,” she said, and caught Astrid’s mouth again.

\--

Predictably, Astrid Leong’s breasts were exactly as perfect as the rest of her.

\--

They didn’t mention Nick again. They didn’t talk about Singapore nor New York, not Rachel’s plans nor Astrid’s plans. They ate delicious fish and drank cocktails and watched sunsets, and Rachel sucked on Astrid’s clit until Astrid whined with impatience.

The night before Rachel’s flight out—Astrid’s, too, presumably, though they hadn’t talked about that—Rachel looked over the edge of the infinity pool to the sea and said, “Do you want to run away to New York with me?”

Astrid sucked in a breath, and the whole world waited, trembling. “Yes,” Astrid said at last. “_Yes._”

[end]


End file.
